


The Dream Journal

by TheShipThatSailsItself



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Adventure, Dreams, F/M, Fantasy, Forbidden Love, Genetics, Possibly more than just F/M relationships hopefully, Science Fiction, govenment, mutated, mutations, relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-16 14:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9276713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShipThatSailsItself/pseuds/TheShipThatSailsItself
Summary: What if dying in your dreams meant dying in reality?Its 2030 and a mutated gene in the human population is causing the brain to no longer be able to prevent the body from reacting to dreams. If you die in your dream, you die in reality.Follow Elle Valentina as she tries to survive not only survive her dreams, but  live in a world were the mutated are shunned and marrying for love is no longer an option.





	1. Prologue

Scientists aren’t entirely sure why dreams occur. 

In the 1900’s, Sigmund Freud theorised that they functioned as a way to preserve our sleep. This however, was disproved when REM sleep was discovered in 1953. The most commonly accepted theory today is that dreams are a way of the unconscious mind to process information it has learned from the day. Many cultures believe that dreams have hidden meanings and messages that can be decoded. Others believe it’s a sign from their Gods.

I believe its nature’s way of telling humanity that somewhere along our evolution, we fucked up. 

My name is Elle Valentina and it is currently the year 2030. Around 10 years ago, scientist began to notice an increase in the amount of people who were dying in their sleep. I don’t mean of old age, I mean people of all ages, healthy people. 

In the beginning it was ignored. It’s hard to see the bigger picture at first. But once censuses were completed and curious scientist and doctors began to look around the world for answers as to why a few healthy people were dying, a dark pattern began to emerge. 

It must be noted that people have been inexplicably dying in their sleep for hundreds of years with no apparent cause, take for example sudden arrhythmic death syndrome. However these outbreaks of such occurred in such small numbers of the population doctors had no reason to suspect a growing problem and simply put it down to an unknown cause. 

In 2020, this number grew large enough that there was cause for warning. Research groups began looking into the deaths. Many thought this was a new form of biological warfare or silent epidemic. Any information found was kept strictly hidden from the general public so as to not start a panic. Every test we had the technology for was run yet everything came back negative. Theory after theory was tested and nothing was making sense. 

That was until they began testing the children or relatives of the dead. They realised that the one thing that they couldn’t test in the victims was brain activity.   
The studies ran for months. Until one day an exhausted child fell asleep during an MRI. As soon as he began dreaming, his vitals jumped. However this was expected during the stages of a REM cycle, as before deep sleep, is when dreams occur. During this time the body can react to the images as if they were real. Heart rates can rise and fall and so can body temperatures. If the heart rate falls too much, the mind and body is jerked back into consciousness.

This is why nobody present in that room expected to watch the child’s heart rate decrease so much that it just simply stopped. The vital function in the cerebral cortex had failed to work and the body was allowed to react to the dreams it was experiencing in its unconsciousness. The child was lucky enough to be revived as his heart only stopped for a minute, but that minute was all that it took to set off a worldwide chain reaction. 

First, scientist found the gene mutation that was causing the function to stop. The government began to work on plans to tell the population without causing a worldwide panic.

This, of course, did not happen smoothly. 

Activist hackers stumbled across the information when a system failure accidentally resulted in the stand alone server being briefly connected to the rest of the network (also due to a lazy technician actually allowing a stand alone server to even be able to connect to a network). 

This of course resulted in a world wide panic. Drug stores sold out of all sleeping pills with people trying to reduce their time in REM sleep. True lucid dreamers were dubbed ‘the gifted’ and were hired in an effort to teach others their secrets of controlling their dreams. People without the mutation were seen as superior to those who had the full mutation although schools tried to teach that everyone was the same. 

People with a recessive or dormant form of the gene were stuck on a sort of middle ground. There was a chance that their children would not have the mutation or would simply become carriers like themselves. However the mutation didn’t seem to just be due to two unlucky carriers having a child, an external factor in the environment was causing the mutation to occur. 

Some scientist theorised that due to the climate becoming warmer and nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima the combination of collision theory and doses of radiation on our cells caused the mutation of the AD_GPR56 gene. While all scientist do agree that climate change is the underlying cause of the problem, some also believe that due to the warmer and longer weather patterns, viruses such as the Zika Virus were able to mutate and not only effect unborn children but sperm as well. 

And basically that is all the history you need, because right now is where the real story begins. The government still hasn’t found a cure, new laws were passed so that people with the mutation are barred from getting married or having children with other carriers or ‘the mutated’ and people continue to die everyday.   
I suppose I should re-introduce myself.

My name is Elle Valentina, It is the year 2030. I am eighteen years old and I am positive for the mutated AD_GPR56 gene.  
My real story begins when I close my eyes.

Welcome to my dream journal.


	2. Routine

Every morning I have the same routine. Wake up and reach over to my bedside table to grab the small journal I was given as a present god knows when. Then, if I dreamt that night, I write it down. 

Little did I know when I was gifted it, that cheap notebook would become one of my most important possessions. 

Every dream I have had is written down in that book. Although I’m not sure I even think of some of those accounts as dreams anymore. More like survival stories. 

As you already know, I have the mutated gene. However I may have forgotten to mention that the government doesn’t know this yet. 

People with the mutation are barred from getting married and having children so my parents decided to give me up for adoption once they found out I was positive. 

As they were both carriers, if they were found with me, they would face serious criminal charges. They then falsified my records so that the orphanages, which are less regulated by the government, would be able to take me in rather than have to send me to the science facilities that orphaned mutation-positive children are sent to.

I didn’t know any of this information until my 10th birthday which is when children with the mutation either stay as a carrier or the mutation ‘switches on’.   
On my tenth birthday I received an anonymous letter. It gave me all the information I needed about why my parents abandoned me, albeit not much but it gave me hope into one day finding them. It also told me that I had the mutation and it would be ‘switched on’ today. 

Happy freaking Birthday to me. 

From then on life got harder. I could feel myself splitting into two separate identities. My reality self, and my dream self.   
In reality I was a quiet and shy girl who could never speak up. But in my dreams I was confident and strong, swinging off buildings and being the hero. It was hard for my ten year old self to hide this dream self. But now days I use those experiences to make me stronger. 

When I was eleven, I spoke up for once, became noticed, and got adopted into a nice wealthy family. Everything was brand new for me. I was given my own room with a big bed with the softest sheets I had ever felt. My dreams were peaceful and warm in this time.

I shared wonderful memories in the beginning with my adoptive parents, full of sunshine and ice creams, walks through their estate looking for mushrooms in the dark undergrowth. The world was so much brighter back then and my dreams mimicked this fact. 

But then I grew older. I became used to the things that had seemed to wondrous at the time and begin to see what was really happening in the world.   
Violence and pollution played on the news. The stars were becoming less clear the more the dirty city crept towards the estate. 

I was 16 when I had my first nightmare.

I barely made it, waking up uncontrollably shaking as my body temperature fell. The down covers could no longer keep out the reality that my brain was damaged. I was just like half of the world’s population, evolution had failed us and nature was trying to kill us. 

That’s when I began writing down my dreams. 

The Gifted, people able to lucid dream, claimed that writing your dreams down would eventually help with controlling them. So far this hasn’t exactly worked. If anything, my dreams became more vivid and less controllable. 

This leads to the present. Two years of dreams fill that book. But now, reality is becoming just as dangerous as my unconscious mind.   
…  
“Elle, dinners ready!” My mother called.

“Coming!” I yell back. I stuff the journal into my pillow case and trip off down the stairs. 

“Elle, what have I told you about running” My father said sternly, “You must walk like a lady.”

I roll my eyes. “Yes father”. I sit down at the table. The food looked amazing as always. Our cook and nanny Jane can make any food no matter what taste delicious. She’s like an older sister to me. She was always slipping me treats and teaching me her old family recipes. 

“I have some important news” My father said, turning towards me, “As you have just turned eighteen you will need to go to the government facilities as soon as possible to have your blood taken.” 

I freeze. “Why?” I ask. Please let this just be something like a vaccine check. 

“Its just a mandatory check to ensure that people aren’t pretending to be pure. We couldn’t let the mutated run around and breed with whoever they wanted could we” he laughed. “Don’t worry, you don’t have anything to be scared of, the tests don’t hurt at all.”

Ahh shit.

“ahaha oh that makes me feel better” I laughed weakly. My mind was buzzing. My parents could not find out that I had the gene. Yes they loved me, but they also hated the mutated. They didn’t even think of them as normal human beings, rather like a plague sent to wipe out what my father liked to call The Pure. He worked as an executive in a government facility which was responsible for the prosecution of the mutated trying to marry or have children. 

I hated his job. The few times I had to actually visit him, I was surrounded by crying women and girls sent for immediate abortions and men trying to look stoic as they were placed in handcuffs and sent away. But he though he was doing the right thing, prosecuting and killed off the mutated until only the pure were left and the world would be right again.

“Elle are you alright?” My mother’s concerned voice pulled me from my trance.  
“Huh, oh yes I’m fine” I quickly replied. “Just a bit tired I suppose.”

“Well finish your plate so you can have an early night” she smiled and rubbed my cheek. 

“Thanks mum” I replied shovelling the rest of the food into my mouth. I rose from the table, leaning over to kiss my parents goodnight, then slowly climbed back upstairs.   
…

Well. Unless I could find someone to falsify my blood work again I was basically screwed. My parents would find out that I wasn’t pure like them and they would probably throw me in jail. I know what you’re thinking ‘Elle they might hate the mutated but they wouldn’t throw you in jail. Yes they would. Any chance at a normal future would be ruined. I wouldn’t be able to go to university or become a scientist. Instead I would be labelled damaged like the rest of them and be given the most dangerous and disgusting jobs that nobody wanted. 

The pay for a mutated was also discriminated against. The system was designed for you to become poorer so you would be more likely to give in to the money the government paid to experiment new drugs and brain techniques on you. 

This of course was all justified in the name of finding a cure and saving the slowly decreasing population. 

I changed into pyjamas and pulled back the covers of my bed. As I lay down I reached to the side and opened a small jewellery box. Inside lay a bracelet made of fine leather and a thin gold chain woven together. In the middle of it; a stone glittering with deep colours of the rainbow, surrounded by intricate gold casing. I bought it on my tenth birthday when an old beggar came approached my family as we walked in the park. My dad was about to send him away when he showed it too me. I immediately wanted that bracelet. ‘For good luck’ the man had said before slipping away.

It stays with me in my dreams. I do believe in some way it is a good luck charm.   
Once it is secure around my wrist, I turn out the light.

Then I close my eyes.  
…


	3. Snakes

My eyes hurt as they adjust to the bright sunlight. I look around. Where am I this time?

It looks like a desert but its not. 

I’m standing in a dry lakebed. Although it is bright, the sky is a muted grey. Kind of like an ominous storm on the horizon. 

The ground is dried mud with deep cracks. I look around. Off in the distance there seems to be trees of some sort. That seems like the best way to head.

I begin trudging along still glancing around. There seems to be some type of distortion like mirages around. I keep going until I trip on a small piece of metal sticking from the ground. 

Reaching down, I yank at it, falling backwards as I miscalculate the strength it required to be unearthed. I hold it up, blowing the grey dust off it. Its orange, but it looks like it may have once been red. There seems to be some type of language that I don’t understand on it. It looks like a warning. 

I look around again. Was this a minefield? Did I literally dream myself into a mine field? But nothing seems to be out of the ordinary… except for the mirages. They were gone?

Dried mud falls as I stand back up. Continuing on in the same direction I swing the sign in my hands.

Then out of the corner of my eye I notice the distortion has started up again. I stop, it stops. Interesting.

I keep going, picking up the pace until I notice something in one of the deep cracks between the dried mud. A snake. 

It was very long. Thick enough to look dangerous but thin enough to perfectly slide between the mud. I freeze, it freezes. 

I decide the best way to avoid it would probably be to walk very slowly. As soon as I start I begin to notice more. They were everywhere. The distortion was not a mirage, it was the snakes. Hundreds of them all moving through the cracks making it look like the ground was rippling. 

I freeze, they all freeze. Well here goes nothing. I start running and they all take off. But as soon as I stop, they stop. 

Sweat begins to bead along the back of my neck and back. The more I moved the more they could sense me. If I stayed perfectly still they might not be able to see me. But these snakes were faster than me. 

With the amount of vibration I make while running full pelt, they would eventually catch me and I definitely did not want to stick around to see how venomous they were.   
I lifted my leg gently. The snakes didn’t move but they followed the movement with their heads. I gingerly took the biggest step I could and then gently placed my foot back on the ground. The snakes didn’t move. 

Awesome, I just need to repeat that three hundred times and I would be out of this snake death pit and into the safety of the trees. I slowly repeated the action. So far, so good. The snakes didn’t seem to be moving yet. 

I glanced up and looked at the tree line. A short sprint and I would be there. I lifted my leg again and went to move my foot, but my balance was off. I landed slightly heavier than before. I quickly looked back at the snakes. Shit. They were all a foot closer than before. 

This method wasn’t working. I looked around, what could I use? Could I fight these snakes? Definitely not, with the speed and accuracy of them not to mention how many hundreds there seemed to be I would be dead in minutes. I look down at the sign I’m holding. This could possibly work but it could also go horribly wrong. If I can Frisbee the sign far enough away it might slide across the mud fast enough that the snakes would begin chasing it and not me.

I take deep breath. Here goes nothing. I fling the sign to my left across the ground. The sharp edging catches on my hand slicing it open. No time to worry about that now. I bolt towards to trees. My heart beat is throbbing in my temples and all I can focus on is putting one leg in front of the other. 

I’m nearing the trees, in the last few meters I take a dive onto the weedy grass. I crash through the undergrowth and look behind me, it looks like the whole lake is alive as the snakes writhe around the warning sign, their hisses blending into one ominous hum. The bunch that had followed me slowly sank back down into the cracks. I could see their black eyes glinting as they slipped away. 

In less than a minute the dried lake was back to the barren land it once was like nothing had ever happened. 

I lay back on my arms, still panting from the exertion. I began to feel the sting of the cut when everything began to go fuzzy. I smiled and lent back further and let the pull of consciousness bring me back to reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired by a real dream (which was terrifying)  
> Hope you are enjoying this story so far
> 
> xx

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all,  
> This will be an ongoing book, hopefully updated every week.  
> All dreams used in this book are true.  
> Feel free to chat anytime! Kudos are much appreciated <3


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